A 20-year-old man was sentenced to 17 years in a federal prison for his role in a $600,000 heist in which a bank teller set it all up.
Senior Judge John Kane sentenced Gabriel Jesse Archuleta to two concurrent 10-year prison terms for robbery and a consecutive seven-year term for using a weapon during a robbery of a Wells Fargo Bank in Wheat Ridge on June 17, 2014.
Kane ordered Archuleta to pay restitution and serve five years of supervised released.
Archuleta wept, apologized and professed finding Jesus to the judge and a group of spectators who included victims of the bank and his relatives during the sentencing hearing Thursday.
Kane told him he could either do something in prison to demonstrate he truly turned his life around or “sit on his butt” in the yard and probably join a gang. He recommended a prison placement where gang activity is minimal.
Kane declined a defense request that he recommend Archuleta stay in a Colorado federal prison so he could be close to his family because the judge said that would not be in his best interests. Archuleta’s mother faces federal drug charges and several family members have done prison time, he pointed out.
In sentencing Archuleta, Kane took into account the fact that and was a continuing public threat.
The 2:15 p.m. robbery at 6000 W. 44th Ave. was facilitated by a former bank teller identified in court documents only as a “confidential informant 1,” who informed Archuleta and accomplices Thomas Jay Lucero and Thomas McQuown the optimal time to rob the bank to recoup the largest take.
When Archuleta and an accomplice entered the bank they knew who could open the bank vault and that it took two people to do so. The vault had a safe packed with stacks of 4,500 $100 dollar bills, according to court records.
The money was placed in a black plastic trash bag. At one point one of the robbers engaged the slide on the handgun to get the manager to move more rapidly. One of the robbers kicked another employee, accusing her of tripping the alarm.
The robbers torched a stolen Honda Element after the robbery. FBI agents, believing the robbery was aided by an insider, examined bank employee phone records and found a link to the suspects, court records indicate.
The teller confessed, explaining that she told the robbers which Wells Fargo branch would have large amounts of cash at a particular time. She later received a cut of the stolen money.
Archuleta and accomplices went on a buying binge in which he purchased jewelry, clothing and six vehicles including a 2005 BMW 545 and a 2007 Chevrolet Silverado 1500.
